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Suspect in Fort Hood shooting, a Muslim, asked Army to discharge him, aunt said

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Mary Pat Flaherty, William Wan - Nov. 06 (News Report) - He prayed every day at the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring, a devout Muslim who, despite asking to be discharged from the U.S. Army, was on the eve of his first deployment to war. Yesterday, authorities said Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, a 39-year-old Arlington-born psychiatrist, shot and killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex

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House leaders prepare for rare Saturday vote on health-care bill

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Lori Montgomery - Nov. 05 (News Report) - House leaders put in motion the machinery to hold a rare Saturday vote on the most far-reaching expansion of the health-care system in more than 40 years. Even so, they were still locking down support Wednesday among a handful of holdouts, with the biggest bloc dissatisfied with the measure's handling of abortion.

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Contests serve as warning to Democrats: It's not 2008 anymore

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Dan Balz - Nov. 04 (News Analysis) - Off-year elections can be notoriously unreliable as predictors of the future, but as a window on how the political landscape may have changed in the year since President Obama won the White House, Tuesday's Republican victories in Virginia and New Jersey delivered clear warnings for the Democrats.

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Karzai win complicates White House strategy for Afghanistan

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Scott Wilson - Nov. 02 (News Analysis) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai's election by default Monday confirms at least a week earlier than expected that the Obama administration will continue for the foreseeable future to have the same mercurial partner in Afghanistan.

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Dozens in Congress under ethics inquiry

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Ellen Nakashima, Paul Kane - Oct. 29 (News) - House ethics investigators have scrutinized the activities of more than 30 lawmakers and several aides in inquiries about issues including defense lobbying and corporate influence peddling, according to a confidential House ethics committee report prepared in July.

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Official resigns over Afghan war

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Karen DeYoung - Oct. 27 (Special Report) - A former Marine Corps captain with combat experience in Iraq, Hoh had also served in uniform at the Pentagon, and as a civilian in Iraq and at the State Department. By July, he was the senior U.S. civilian in Zabul province, a Taliban hotbed. But last

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A guide to the public option compromises in the Senate

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Ezra Klein - Oct. 24 (News Analysis) - There are three "compromise" public options currently being considered in the U.S. Senate (and yes, I know many argue that the public option is itself a compromise, and there's something to that). Ben Nelson is advocating one. Olympia Snowe is behind another. Jay Rockefeller is talking up a third. Herewith, a guide for the perplexed:

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Fox wars

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Charles Krauthammer - Oct. 23 (Opinion) - While government can and should debate and criticize opposition voices, the current White House goes beyond that. It wants to delegitimize any significant dissent. The objective is no secret. White House aides openly told Politico that they're engaged in a deliberate campaign to marginalize and ostracize recalcitrants, from Fox to health insurers to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

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Neutralizing the opposition

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Howard Kurtz - Oct. 22 (News Analysis) - The Foxified debate over whether the White House is being mean to a certain network is morphing into a broader argument about the politics of negativity. The question, which is being pushed on the right, is whether the Obama team is using its muscle to demonize its opponents. The president bears a special burden in this regard. He ran as a post-partisan guy who would reach out to the other side. (Of course, Bush also ran as a uniter-not-a-divider, and that didn't work out too well.) But while Obama is a conciliator by nature, what should a politician do when the opposition refuses to meet him even a quarter-way? Number of Republican votes for the stimulus: zero. Number of Republican votes so far for health-care reform: one. And if the insurance industry, after making a deal with the White House, attempts to sink health care? What administration wouldn't fight back? I just wonder if Obama is being held to a higher standard when he practices plain ol' politics.

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Advice From an Iranian Nobel Laureate About Her Country

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - Oct. 15 (Opinion) - So it was startling this week to hear Ms. Ebadi say bluntly that the Obama administration has gotten some things backward when it comes to Iran. It's not that engaging with the government is a mistake, she said during a visit to The Post. But paying so

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The Insurance Industry's Deceptive Report

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Ezra Klein - Oct. 12 (Opinion) - In the hallowed tradition of the tobacco and energy industries, the health insurance industry has commissioned a report (pdf) projecting doom and despair for those who seek to reform its business practices. The report was farmed out to the consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers, which has something of a history with this sort of thing: In the early-'90s, the tobacco industry commissioned PWC to estimate the economic devastation that would result from a tax on tobacco. The report was later analyzed by the Arthur Andersen Economic Consulting group, which concluded that "the cumulative effect of PW’s methods … is to produce patently unreliable results." It's perhaps no surprise that the patently unreliable results were all in the tobacco industry's favor. He who pays the piper names the tune, and all that.

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Insurance Group Says Health Bill Will Mean Higher Premiums

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Ceci Connolly - Oct. 12 (News Report) - After months of collaboration on President Obama's attempt to overhaul the nation's health-care system, the insurance industry plans to strike out against the effort on Monday with a report warning that the typical family premium in 2019 could cost $4,000 more than projected.

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Health-Care Bill May Not Get Single GOP Vote in the House

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Ben Pershing - Oct. 10 (News Analysis) - The House is inching closer to voting on a comprehensive health-care bill, even as the chamber appears so divided that the measure may not attract a single Republican supporter. The final vote, likely in late October, is impossible to predict, but lawmakers and aides from both parties said this week that there is a strong chance the GOP will be unanimous in its opposition. Such a result would mark the second time -- the first came on the economic stimulus package in February -- that the entire House minority rejected one of President Obama's top domestic initiatives.

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Health-Care Bill Wouldn't Raise Deficit, Report Says

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Lori Montgomery - Oct. 08 (News Report) - Congressional budget analysts gave an important political boost Wednesday to a Senate panel's health-care overhaul, projecting that the $829 billion measure would dramatically shrink the ranks of the uninsured and keep President Obama's pledge that doing so would not add "one dime" to federal budget deficits.

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If We Lose Afghanistan

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 04:14:39 -0700

Washington Post - Oct. 06 (Opinion) - AT THE heart of the Obama administration's deliberations about Afghanistan is the question of whether U.S. security rests on the defeat of the Afghan Taliban movement. The discussion often gets narrowed to the point of whether al-Qaeda, which is based

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Key Democrats Still On the Fence About Reform

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Ceci Connolly - Oct. 05 (News Report) - At least two Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee have refused to pledge support for the health-care reform bill scheduled for a vote this week, underscoring the hard work ahead for President Obama as he tries to enact the most ambitious domestic policy legislation in more than a generation.

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Discrimination by Insurers Likely Even With Reform, Experts Say

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By David S. Hilzenrath - Oct. 04 (News Report) - Any health-care overhaul that Congress and President Obama enact is likely to have as its centerpiece a fundamental reform: Insurers would not be allowed to reject individuals or charge them higher premiums based on their medical history. But simply banning medical discrimination would not necessarily remove it from the equation, economists and health-care analysts say. If insurers are prohibited from openly rejecting people with preexisting conditions, they could try to cherry-pick through more subtle means. For example, offering free health club memberships tends to attract people who can use the equipment, says Paul Precht, director of policy at the Medicare Rights Center.

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The Coming Failure On Iran

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Jackson Diehl - Oct. 02 (Opinion) - The Obama administration’s positive tone following its first diplomatic encounter with Iran covers a deep and growing gloom in Washington and European capitals. Seven hours of palaver in Geneva haven’t altered an emerging conclusion: None of the steps the West is considering to stop the Iranian...

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Senate Finance Committee Debates Public Option

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By William Branigin - Sep. 29 (Breaking News) - Washington PostSenate Finance Committee Debates Public OptionWashington PostThe Senate Finance Committee took up the politically volatile issue of a government-run "public option" in health insurance Tuesday as it considered a massive bill to overhaul the nation's health care system. ...Aliens, the Public Option, and UsAtlantic OnlinePublic plan debate could pit Democrat vs. DemocratThe Associated PressSenators Clash on Public Insurance Option Before VoteBloombergHelicopter Association International?-CBS News?-Talk Radio News Serviceall 636 news articles??

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Iran Test Fires Most Advanced Missiles

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By William Branigin - Sep. 28 (News Report) - Iran reported Monday that it successfully test-fired its most advanced and powerful medium-range missiles as part of war games it said were intended to deter the country’s enemies.

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As Subprime Lending Crisis Unfolded, Watchdog Fed Didn’t Bother Barking

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Binyamin Appelbaum - Sep. 27 (Special Report) - Under a policy quietly formalized in 1998, the Fed refused to police lenders' compliance with federal laws protecting borrowers, despite repeated urging by consumer advocates across the country and even by other government agencies.

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U.S. Mission in Pakistan Hindered by Anti-Americanism

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Karen DeYoung, Pamela Constable - Sep. 25 (News Report) - A new wave of anti-American sentiment in Pakistan has slowed the arrival of hundreds of U.S. civilian and military officials charged with implementing assistance programs, undermined cooperation in the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban and put American lives at risk, according to officials f...

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For G-20 Summit, Old Issues Give Way to New

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Annys Shin - Sep. 24 (News Report) - Having moved with unprecedented speed and coordination five months ago to head off what many feared might be another Great Depression, the leaders of the world's 20 largest economies are set to gather Thursday in Pittsburgh to discuss whether it is time to wind down stimulus efforts and talk about what can be done to prevent a repeat of the crisis.

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Obama to Set Higher Bar For Keeping State Secrets

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Carrie Johnson - Sep. 23 (News Report) - The Obama administration will announce a new policy Wednesday making it much more difficult for the government to claim that it is protecting state secrets when it hides details of sensitive national security strategies such as rendition and warrantless eavesdropping, according to two senior Justice Department officials.

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Obama Challenges World’s Leaders in U.N. Speech

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Michael D. Shear, Colum Lynch - Sep. 23 (News Report) - President Obama delivered a stern speech to the leaders of the world's nations Wednesday morning, challenging them to live up to their responsibilities even as he acknowledged that the United States also has fallen short on many fronts.

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